Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Majora

(Long story + Videos + Ass-ton of Comments = Occasional Page Lockup. If you would rather view this with each video + story being separate, click here.)

I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least. I could finally play all those old games of my youth I hadn't touched in least a decade.

His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers and, while beggers can't be choosers, it didn't take long before I got bored of beating up LVL 9 CPUs.

That weekend, I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off-campus, hitting up the local garage sales. I was hoping to score some good deals from ignorant parents. I ended up picking up a a copy of Pokemon Stadium, Goldeneye, F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars.

Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house caught my attention. I still have no idea why it did; there were no cars there and only one table was set up with random junk on it. However, something sort of drew me there.

I usually trust my gut on these things, so I got out of the car and was greeted by an old man. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing. It was odd. If you asked me why I thought he looked displeasing, I couldn't really pinpoint anything.

There was just something about him that put me on edge. I can't explain it. All I can tell you that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there weren't other people within shouting distance, I wouldn't have even thought of approaching this man.

He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for. Immediately, I noticed he must be blind in one eye; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye, trying not to offend, and asked if he had any old video games.

I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a video game was, but to my surprise he said he had a few in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage.

As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on his table. Littered across his table were rather...peculiar paintings - various artworks that looked like ink blots a psychiatrist might show you.

Curious, I looked through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale; these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, I noticed it looked almost like Majora's Mask, with the same heart-shaped body with the little spikes protruding outward.

Initially, I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales, some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots. However, given the events that happened after, I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I asked the man about it.

After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms-length in front of me and smiling. I'll admit, I jumped out of reflexa nd laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge.

It was the standard gray color and had no label. Someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I got butterflies in my stomach as I realized what a coincidence it was and asked how much the old man wanted for it.

The old man smiled and told me I could have it for free. He said it used to belong to a kid around my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird about how he phrased that, but I didn't really any attention then. I was too caught up in not only finding the game, but getting it for free.

I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there was no guarantee it would work. However, the optimist inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta or pirated version of the game. That was all I needed to be back on cloud nine.

I thanked the man, who smiled and wished me well, saying "Goodbye then," which at the time is what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car ride home, I had a nagging doubt that the man had said something else.

My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game (to my surprise, it worked just fine) and there was one save file simply named, "BEN." The man was saying, "Goodbye, Ben." I felt bad for him. He was obviously a grandparent going senile. I, for some reason or another, reminded him of his grandson, "Ben."

Out of curiosity, I looked at the save file. I could tell he was pretty far in the game; he had almost all of the masks and 3/4 boss remains. I noticed he had used an owl statue to save his game. He was on Day 3 by the Stone Tower Temple with hardly an hour before the moon would crash.

I remember thinking it was a shame he had come so close to beating the game but never finished it. I made a new file named "Link," out of tradition, and started the game. I was ready to relive my childhood.

For such a shady looking cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran - literally just like a retail copy of the game, save for few minor hiccups here and there (textures being where they should be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd intervals, nothing too bad).

However, the only thing that was a little unnerving was that, at times, the NPCs would call me "Link" and call me "BEN" at other times. I figured it was a bug, maybe a fluke in the programming, that caused our save files to get mixed up or something.

It did kind of creep me out after a while, though. Around the time I beat Woodfall temple, I regretably erased the "BEN" file. I had intended to preserve the file out of respect for the game's original owner. It's not like I needed two files anyway.

I hoped that would solve the problem. It did and didn't. Now NPCs wouldn't call me anything. Where my name should be in the dialogue was a blank space (my save file was still called "Link," however). Frustrated and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way toward completing Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch. For those who don't, you can google it.

The gist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you exit the telescope just as the timer hits 00:00:00, the countdown disappears and you essentially have an endless amount of time to finish whatever you were doing.

Deciding to do the glitch to try and finish Snowhead Temple, I went in and tried. I happened to get it right on the first time and the counter at the bottom disappeared.

When I exited the telescope, I found myself in the Majora boss room at the end of the game (the trippy boxed in area), staring at Skull Kid hovering above me. There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me and the background music, which was regular for the area (but still creepy).

Immediately, my palms began to sweat. This was definitely not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area and, n omatter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, not saying anything.

Nothing would happen and this kept up for around sixty seconds. I thought the game was bugged or something, but I was beginning to doubt that very much.

I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on the screen. "You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation..." I instantly recognized that text. You get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot Inn. Why was it playing here?

I refused to entertain the nothing that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started to walk around the room again, testing if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something before realizing how stupid I was.

To even think that someone could reprogram the game like this was absurd. Sure enough, though, another message appeared on the screen fifteen seconds later and, like the first one, it was already a preexisting phrase. "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/No"

I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized I couldn't select No. Taking a deep breath, I pressed Yes and the screen faded to white, with the words "Dawn of a New Day" and the subtext "||||||||" beneath it.

Where I was transported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I have ever experienced. The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale.

I'm not normally a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling I didn't even know existed. It was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash right over me.

I appeared in some kind of weird Twilight Zone version of Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from the 1st Day) only to find all the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch, you can still find the guards and the dog that runs around outside the tower, but they were all gone.

What replaced them was the ominous feeling there was something out there, in the same area as me, and it was watching me. I had four hearts ot my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considering for my avatar. I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger.

Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music. It was the Song of Healing, ripped straight from the game and played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state.

Every now and then, I would hear the faint laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman in the background. It was just quiet enough that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him.

I looked in all four zones of Clock Town only to find nothing...and no one. Textures were missing, too. West Clock town had me walking on air and the entire area felt...broken. Hopelessly broken.

As the reverse Song of Healing repeated for what must have been the 50t time, I remember standing in the middle of South Clock town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a video game before.

As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out-of-place textures, the atmosphere, and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, but something had gripped me here and caused this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I went through one of the exits, the screen would fade to black and I would enter another zone of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina. I wanted to escape; I did NOT want to be here. However, every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring, it would only say, "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens."

By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside buildings; I felt I would be too vulnerable to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that if I drowned myself at the Laundry Pool, I could spawn elsewhere and leave.

As I ran toward the pool, it happened. Link grabbed his head and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the Happy Mask Saleman smiling at me - not Link, but ME - with the Skull Kid's scream playing in the background. When the screen returned, I was staring at the Link Statue usually created by playing the Elegy of Emptiness.

I screamed as the thing stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran back to South Clock Town. To my horror, the fucking statue followed me in a way I can only describe as being similar to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.

Every so often, at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me. It was like the thing was chasing me, or - I don't even want to fucking say it - haunting me.

By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics. However, not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me. I don't know why, but I was so wrapped up in it. The terror felt all so real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time it went off-screen.

Link started to make weird animations I had never seen him do. He would flail his arms around or spasm randomly. The screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again.

I ended up running into the Swordsmaster's Dojo and ran to he back. I don't know why, but in my panic I wanted some kind of assurance I wasn't alone. To my dismay, I found no one. As I turned to leave, the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back.

I tried attacking the statue with my sword, but to no avail. Confused and backed into a corner, I stared at the statue and waited for it to kill me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link turned to face me, standing upright as a mirror image of the statue and looking at me with his copy. Literally staring at me.

Whatever was left of the fourth wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo, terrified. Suddenly, the game warped me to an underground tunnel. The reverse Song of Healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing again...this time aggressively.

I could only take a few steps before it would be summoned behind me again. I hurriedly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly in a sheer panic, a ReDead suddenly screamed and the screen faded to black. "Dawn of a New Day" and "||||||||" appeared again.

The screen faded in and I was standing atop the Clock Tower with Skull Kid overing over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid stared at me hauntingly with that fucking mask.

A new song was playing: the Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired off a shot at Skull Kid. It actually hit him and he played an animation of him reeling back.

I fired again and, on the third arrow, a text box appeared that said, "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him.

I jumped when this happened. I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and, in addition, Skull Kid didn't even have any moves! As the dead scene played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the screen faded to black.

I reappeared in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened. Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force and burst into flames, again killing him. This time, during the death scene, the faint sounds of the reverse Song of Healing could be heard.

On my third and final try, I noticed there was no music playing; all there was was eerie silence. I remembered that in the original encounter with Skull Kid, you were supposed to use the ocarina to either travel back in time or Summon the Giants. I attempted to play the Song of Time, but before I could hit the last note Link's body once again burst into flames and he died.

As the death scene neared its end, the game began to chug. It was as if th cartridge was trying to process a lot of something. When the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times, except Link was lying on the ground, dead, in a position I had never seen in the game before.

His head was tilted toward the camera and Skull Kid was floating above him. I couldn't move or press any buttons. All I could do was stare at Link's body. After around 30 seconds of this, the game faded out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking me to the title screen.

Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was gone. Instead of "Link" was "YOUR TURN." "YOUR TURN" had three hearts and no masks or items. I selected this file and was returned to the Clock Tower Rooftop scene of Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kid's laugh looping again and again.

I quickly hit reset and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added below "YOUR TURN": "BEN." That save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at the Stone Tower Temple with the moon almost crashing.

I turned the game off at that point. I'm not superstitious, but this is WAY too fucked up - even for me. I haven't played it at all today. Hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night. I kept hearing the reverse Song of Healing in my head and couldn't get past that sense of dread I felt while exploring Clock Town.

I drove back to the old man's house today with a buddy of mine (no way was I going there alone) to ask him some questions, only to find there's a for sale sile in the front yard. When I rang the doorbell, no one was home.

So now I'm back here, writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened. Sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot; I'm running on no sleep here.

I'm terrified of this game, even moreso now that I relived it a second time just writing this down. However, I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye and there's something calling me to investigate this further.

I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what. If I could get hold of the old man, I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recuperate before tackling this game again, however. I feel it's already taken a toll on my insanity, but next time I do this I'm going to record the entire thing.

The idea to record only came to me toward the end, so you only see the last few minutes of what I saw (including the Skull Kid and Elegy statue), but it's on Youtube here.

I'm going to post what happened and link to the video footage, but everything got too real for me last night. I think I'm done messing around with this.

I passed out pretty much immediately after making that thread. Last night, however, I had a dream about that Elegy of Emptiness statue. I dreamed it was following me, that i would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end.

I would turn around and that thing...that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring at me with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben. Never bore had I had a dream I could remember so vividly. The important thing is that I did get SOME sleep, I suppose.

Today, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back to that neighborhood to see if the old man returned. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door came up and asked me if I was looking for someone.

I told him I was looking to talk to the old man that lived here, to which he told me what I already knew: he was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could talk to.

I discovered this old man had never been married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question (one I should have asked from the beginning): who was Ben?

The man's expression turned grim and I learned that four door down, around eight years ago on April 23rd (the man informed me that it was the same day as his anniversary, which is why he knew the specific date) there was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood.

Shortly after, his parents moved. Despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else.

I went back home and started playing the game again. I loaded up the game and immediately jumped at the sequence where the mask flies by. The sound that played was not the normal "whoosh" sound, but something much more higher pitched.

I pressed start and braced for the worst, but just like two nights ago the files "YOUR TURN" and "BEN" were displayed. Truth be told, I looked at the BEN file earlier and it seems to fluctuate between displaying the owl icon and not.

I brought up the BEN file and hesitated for a moment as I noticed the stats were not the same as they were two days ago. It looked like he had already completed the Stone Tower Temple this time. Summoning my courage, I selected it.

Immediately, I was thrust into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The area itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e," and immedately a dialogue box of complete gibberish I couldn't make out greeted me.

Link's body was distorted. His back was cocked violently to the side and his posture was permanently disfigured. Link's expression was dull, almost monotonous. He had an expression on his face I didn't recognize. It was a blank look, as if he were dead.

As Link stood there, his body spasmed irregularly back and forth. I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed a C-button item I never saw before. It was some kind of note, but pressing it did nothing.

Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game. They were almost demonic nature. There was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background, too.

I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned. Immediately after, I was cut to the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time without the "||||||" subtext.

I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town. This scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say, "Wh-What just happened? It's as if everything has..." but instead of saying, "Started over," she finished her remark in broken text as the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman played in the background.

I ws put back in control of my character, but from a screwed up angle. I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku Scrub.

Seeing as I had no place to go because I couldn't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside. There, I was greeted by the Happy Mask Salesman. He simply told me, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.

I was in Termina Field as a Hylian again. I might as well have not even even been playing the same game anymore. I was being warpd around and there was no sign of a clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field and, immediately, I could tell this wasn't normal.

There were no enemies and a twisted version of the Happy Mask Salesman's theme was playing. I decided to run toward Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side; one of them was Epona.

As I approached them, I saw the Happy Mask Salesman, the Skull Kid, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue standing there as well. I fugred maybe they were bugged out, but by then I should have known better.

Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found Skull Kid and Epona were doing some kind of idle animations on loop. The Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it had been doing all along: standing there eerily. It was the Happy Mask Salesman that scared me profoundly more than the other two.

He, too, was idle and wearing that shit-eating grin. However, wherever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had no engaged in any dialogue with him nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements.

Reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on top of the Clock Tower, I pulled out my Ocarina (to which the game played the ding sound that tells you you're supposed to play it) and tried a song I hadn't played yet - the Happy Mask Salesman's own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4: the Song of Healing.

As I finished playing the song, an ear-piercing shriek blasted the TV speakers. The sky immediately started flashing and the Happy Mask Salesman's twisted theme sped up, intensifying the fear inside me. Link exploded into flames and died.

The three figures stayed lit up during the death scene as they watched my lifeless body burn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eeriness to terror it is. You're going to have to watch the video if you want to see that firsthand.

That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.

I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cutscene of transforming into a Zora. Now I found myself in the Great Bay. Hesistant, but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way toward the beach, where I found Epona.

I wondered why the game had decided to put her here. Was the game implying she was trying to get a drink? Unable to take mask off, I decided that riding the steed wasn't the reason she was placed there.

Suddenly, I realized that Epona kept neighing. The way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into the water and started swimming.

Regardless, my character choked to death and died. Again, the statue was the only thing that was highlighted in my death. I didn't respawn this time. I was booted back to the main menu as if I restarted the console.

The title screen was before me and I knew the only reason it would put me here is because the save files had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I press start and found out I was right.

The new save files told me about Ben. Now it made sense why the statue appeared when I tried to go to the Laundry Pool. The game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town.

The two save files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He had drowned. The game obviously isn't through with me. It taunts me with the new save files. It wants me to keep playing. It wants me to go further. I'm done with this shit, though. I'm not touching any more of the files.

This is already way too horrifying for me and I don't even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message? I don't understand it and I just get too depressed thinking about it.

The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try and analyze it. Maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through, but I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to fuck with it anymore.

I know it's early in the morning. I've stayed up all night. I can't sleep. I don't care if people see this. That's not the point. I just want the word to get spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to type about this. The less I well on this the better.

I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to. I played the Elegy of Emptiness at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm even humoring the absurd idea he exists in the game) wanted me to do.

He's following me now, but not just in the game; he's in my dreams. I see him all the time, behind my back, just watching me. I haven't gone to any of my classes. I've stayed in my dorm room with the windows closed and the blinds shut. That way I know he can't watch me.

However, he still gets to me when I play. When I play, he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time, not just using the text already in the game, but literally spoke to me. It referenced Ben. I don't know what it means or what it wants. I never wanted this. I just want my old life back.

Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like me. I'm just a kid not even old enough to drink yet. It's not fair. I want to go home and see my parents again. I'm so far away from home here at this school, but I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue's horrible, blank face.

My original game file is back, just the way I left it before it was gone. I don't want to play anymore, though. I feel like something bad will happen if I don't, but that's impossible. It's just a video game; haunted or not, it can't hurt me, right? Like seriously, though. It can't right? That's what I keep telling myself, but every time I think about it I'm not so sure.

Let me just clear things up. I know you guys are worried, but "Jadusable" is okay. He finished moving out today and said he's going back home to take the semester off.

I'm not really sure what's happened. I have a vague ideea, but you guys probably know more than I do. I'm "Jadusable's" roommate and, obviously, I've known something was wrong with him for a few days now.

He stayed in his room all the time, fell out of contact with literally all of his friends, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't been eating hardly anything. After the second day, I couldn't stay there anymore, so I've been crashing at a buddy's place and only coming to get stuff I need.

I tried talking to him several times, but he would cut me off or keep the conversation brief. When I asked him about his strange behavior, it was like he was convinced something was hunting him.

Yesterday I came to grab my philosophy book and he approached me, looking awful (like horrible bags under his eyes). He handed me a flash drive and gave me specific instructions. He told me he needs me to do one last favor for him.

He finally explained to me what has been going on. He gave me the account info to his Youtube account and instructions on how to post with his name code on /x/ specifally. He said you guys had been helping him along the way and you deserved to see the end of it.

He told me he's getting away from here, that the game lured him to play again instead of trying to change things and he shouldn't have done that. He's told me to upload the footage and inform people what happened.

I told him he could do it himself and he got this wild look in his eye, saying he is never looking at that game again. That's the last thing he said to me. He never even said bye when his parents came to pick him up. I was hoping I'd at least get a chance to meet his parents, but they were in and out so quick I never saw them.

I honestly can't tell you what happened. When he spoke, it was kind of hard to understand him. His fucked up appearance distracted me, too.

On the flash drive was footage of the game last night, a text document with his name and password for Youtube, and a third document called TheTruth.txt that contained what he told me were his "last notes" that he'd taken about this.

He told me it meant everything to him that I follow his instructions exactly. Normally, I wouldn't be so 'to the letter' for a request over a fucking video game, but the way he spoke and looked made me know this was really serious.

I've had this video since yesterday, but had to have someone help me use Pinnacle (that's not really my forte). After watching it, I had to go back through and look at the other videos on his Youtube account to figure out what was going on. Even then I'm really confused.

The video is being released tonight, but TheTruth.txt will be released on September 15th just like he requested. I don't know why he wants to wait for his notes to be published, but after what he's been through I'll honor the request.

I haven't dared peek at it yet, so the first time I see it will be the first time you see it out of respect to my friend. To answer your questions...no, I haven't tried calling him yet. I think I'll give him a call tomorrow to see if he's okay or not. He should have gotten back home by now.

About the video: I cut straight to when he loaded the "BEN" file in the game. Looking back, I realized that "Jadusable" left the save select screen in because it occasionally said different names. My bad for that, but all it said this time was the same at the end of his last video (Link and BEN).

I wasn't there when he played it, but it looks to me like in the beginning, he's testing out his equipment or seeing what items he has or something. Apparently, they've changed randomly before. The video starts then. He really wanted you guys to see this. After that, I think the game got too personal for him.

Hey, guys. "Jadusable" here. This will be the last time you'll be hearing for me and this is my final gift to you. These are the notes I have taken and the realizations I've made.

Before I delve into this, I want to thank you for following me and listening. It feels like the weight of a powerful burden is about to be lifted. By the time you read this, I won't be around anymore. After spening four days with this maddening game, however, I have begun to understand what's really at play here. Hopefully, after reading this, we can ensure this never happens again.

There are things I could not share with you while this was going on due to the circumstances to which I'll explain. With Ben blocking any attempt I made to try and relay the truth to you, I tried - ever so subtly - to warn you guys in various ways.

Amidst the chaos and my delirium, I devised a barely noticeable pattern in my videos. In all ifve videos I recorded over the four days, I have either had the Mask of Truth, interacted with a Gossip Stone, or the Lens of Truth equipped at some point.

For you Zelda enthusiasts, these are all symbols of honesty and trustworthiness. I would hope one of you may have picked up on the reference. As I played the file "BEN," being mindful of how Ben was watching over my every move in the game, I made a point to avoid doing anything to obvious.

However, I sent out a hidden message to you guys. I never equipped the Lens of Truth nor the Mask of Truth, nor visited a stone. It worked and the video was uploaded. I prayed someone would notice the pattern didn't apply to BEN.

The tags followed suit, too. I hope you guys paid attention to those as well. They were my little messages to you, but nothing big enough that would catch Ben's attention or make him suspect anything. With Ben manipulating and changing my files, I honestly hope that what you guys saw was close to what actually happened, but there's no way for me to know.

This may be a long read. I don't have time to proofread or make all my research pretty, but here it all is.

---

September 6th, 2010

11:00pm - Can't beLieve what happened, not sure if this is some kind of elaborate hoax, despite the fear I can't help but be exceptionally curious about this. Who or what is the statue? Lot of questions here. I'm starting this document as a "diary" so I can keep track of everything. I'm typing up a summary of what happened so I can come back to it later.

September 7th, 2010

2:10am - (Summary was posted here, you can go back and look at my first post for day four.wmv for that)

4:23am - I can't sleep. I've been trying so hard but the harder I try I just get more restless. I just feel like that statue is appearing whenever I close my eyes.

8:20am - Didn't sleep at all, just going to start my day. I don't think I have the energy to go to class today, I'm going to drive back down to talk to that old man, taking my buddy Tyler with me just in case.

1:18pm - Back home now. No sign of the old man, really weird that he appears to be moving the next day, but maybe the For Sale sign was up there yesterday and I just didn't notice it. Tyler wants to know what's gotten me all worked up, I didn't tell him. Going to eat, feel like death.

3:46pm - Could have sworn driving back from Subway that I saw the Elegy statue buried in some shrubbery staring at me go by. Now I definitely, definitely need sleep.

5:00pm - Don't think a lot of people would belIeve me if I told them about what's happening, think I'm going to try posting this on the internet. Think I'll just use the summary, these notes are pretty sporadic.

6:00pm - Connected my capture card to my computer to upload the footage. Thought my computer froze for a second, made this strange popping sound when I hooked everything up, but now it seems to be working fine again. My computer can't die on me now.

7:00pm - Footage is finished uploading. The quality's a lot better than I thought it would be, gee, guess this is a really special cartridge, I've never had it come through this clear before.

8:45pm - Thought I saw an icon pop up on my desktop that looked like the statue's face for a split second, gave me quite a scare. Getting really unnerved and delirious, I'm going to crash after this.

9:00pm - Begin uploading my Youtube video on an alternate account.

9:03pm - I don't remember having uploaded a Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines video last year. This was probably the account that I shared with a friend of mine last summer, I hope he doesn't mind me using it to upload this.

9:55pm - Posting my summary of Day Four with a link to the Youtube video. Going to try to stay awake but I am sooooo tired right now.

September 8th, 2010

10:48am - I had a dream about the statue. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Ben, power of suggestion most likely, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly.

11:21am - I really don't want to play this game again. I think I'm going to go back to see if that old man's there instead.

1:35pm - No old man, but I had an interesting conversation with his neighbor. I'll post the full thing with my summary of tonight's attempt at playing the game, going to wait for a bit though and see if I can't dig up any information on this Ben guy.

2:45pm - I've been getting random, inexplicable headaches due to the lack of sleep and keep hearing that song in my head. Also its flu season, so I need to be careful not to get sick, my immune system is going to be shit right now because of that all-nighter.

3:00pm -

3:02pm - My computer just... on its own... opened up a text document and wrote the words "Hi" and "www.cleverbot.com" by itself. What... the... fuck...

3:46pm - I went to the website, its one of those "bot chatting" programs. I think its best if I just let the conversation speak for itself:

9/8/10 Conversation

User: Hello?Cleverbot: Hello.User: Who is this and how are you able to control my computer?Cleverbot: Who am I?User: Right, forgot. You're a bot.Cleverbot: Do you really think that?User: Listen, I know whoever is fucking with my computer can see my screen right now.Cleverbot: Yes.User: Yeah, and I'll wager that you're one of those IT kids who thinks he's tough shit. You know what you're doing right now is illegal, right/?Cleverbot: Is it?User: No shit. Are you familiar with the terms "invasion of privacy?". Get the fuck off my computer, kidCleverbot: I am your computer.User: Cool story. Anyway, I'm calling DPS, you picked a bad time to fuck with me kid.Cleverbot: Should I wait until you play the game then?User: ...What?Cleverbot: That game.User: Majora's Mask?Cleverbot: Yes.User: How did you know about that?Cleverbot: Because.User: Because what?Cleverbot: I did it.User: Did what?Cleverbot: I played with you.User: What the fuck?Cleverbot: Were you scared?User: Who the fuck is this?Cleverbot: Ben.User: The statue? You're inside my computer now?Cleverbot: Yes.User: How?Cleverbot: You connected me.User: How the hell did I connect you?Cleverbot: Cables and cords.User: How?Cleverbot: Tell me about yourself.User: What?Cleverbot: Tell me about yourself.User: What do you mean?Cleverbot: What is it that really scares you?User: What the fuck?Cleverbot: Answer.User: No.Cleverbot: Answer.User: What the fuck? How the fuck did you just open that by yourself?Cleverbot: I am your computer now.User: How much can you control?Cleverbot: All.User: What do you want from me?Cleverbot: To entertain.User: You're stuck inside there. You can't hurt me.Cleverbot: HaUser: ?Cleverbot: Go play.User: No, you can't hurt me.Cleverbot: Took you longer to type that.User: So?Cleverbot: You're not sure.User: If you're so powerful, why use a ridiculous website like this to "chat" with meCleverbot: Less messy. More structured. Fun.User: Fun?Cleverbot: Yes. Tradition. I like it.User: You think it's funny?Cleverbot: Amusing.User: And my notes?Cleverbot: You may write them down.User: Why are you letting me?Cleverbot: It is amusing to see what you think of me.
(window closes)

3:50pm - What have I done? I've invited it into my computer. I continue to write these notes, write my summaries, I feel like I am a prisoner in my one place of security. I don't know, I don't know if I'm hallucinating or not. I feel like I'm fucking insane right now. I can feel it, watching over me, even as I type this. Ben is controlling everything in the game - toying with me, leading me like a sheep, but for what? What's the purpose? I know Ben drowned, but why these hauntings? What the fuck am I even doing, it can probably even see this right now.

4:35pm - (Summary of the BEN.wmv playthrough)

7:18pm - BEN called me to Cleverbot again. He tells me that he's sorry and wants to be free. And that I can free him, that just like how he got on my computer from the capture card, he can spread but he needs my help. He says I am special because I can help him. That is the first nice thing he has said. He promises to leave me alone if I do it. He swears he will. I don't know what to think right now, how can I even trust this thing?

7:20pm - I'm terrified of it, but now it's saying that it was just having fun. Its twisted and fucked up version of fun. Hes saying that the game is over. I do want it to be over. He says that he just wants to be free, that he's trapped in the cartridge and my computer and he wants to be freed. I don't want to have to deal with this shit, I don't know how long I can deal with the watching. It's watching my every move, every key stroke, I have nothing private anymore. It knows everything that's been on my computer. It tells that it if it wanted to it could do horrible things to me, but it hasn't so I should trust it.

8:01pm - Something tells me that I'm being played again, just like in the game.

9:29pm - BEN called me to Cleverbot again. I ignored it and went to go take a shower. When I came to my laptop I was welcomed with an image Elegy Statue staring at me with those dead eyes. I don't want to talk to him.

9:44pm - Fuck you Ben I'm not talking to you

9:56pm - Fuck you Ben I'm not talking to you

10:06pm - FUCK YOU BEN I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU

10:12pm - FUCK YOU BEN I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU

10:45pm - It's been more than a half an hour and the messages have stopped. Ben has stopped. I'm beginning to think that Ben isn't confined to just my computer/cartridge, I'm beginning to feel something. It's hard to explain it, I've never been spiritual, but there's something different about the air in my dorm room now.

11:42pm - I'm beginning to see the Elegy statue randomly as I search the internet in places I shouldn't. Places where he shouldn't be - I'd be scrolling down and suddenly I'd be staring at a picture of the Elegy statue. Always the Elegy statue. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

September 9th, 2010

12:35am - My worst fears confirmed - Ben has tampered with my summary of BEN.wmv. I looked at the summary that I posted on various forums for the BEN.wmv file and parts have been omitted. There is no mention of Ben existing outside the game. There is no mention of the Moon Children. How could he have been that quick to delete the post without me noticing? I'm wondering if maybe it appeared to me that I was posting everything, but in reality Ben was posted his own censored version. I'm going to ask Ben why he did it.

12:50am - He isn't responding to me on Cleverbot, its just giving the generic responses it usually does, I'm just talking to a bot this time.

1:24am - I think Ben is mad at me.

10:43am - The Moon Children appeared in my dreams last night, they lifted up their masks to reveal their hideously disfigured faces - maggots crawling out of their orifices, sunken black holes where their eyes should be, a yellow smile that slowly grew bigger and bigger as they came closer to me. They told me that they wanted to play. I tried to run from them - but the four children pinned me down to the ground with surprising strength. Over them stood the Happy Mask Salesman, announcing that he had a new mask that he wanted me to try. In his spastic, sudden movements matching his in-game appearance, he took out a mask of modeled off of someone's face that I couldn't recognize - a younger looking face - and handed it to the Moon Children. Giggling, they latched it to my face; their horrible, broken bodies bouncing up and down. Two of them held me down while the other two began to sow the mask onto my face.

My shrieks and screams caused the Happy Mask Salesman's face to turn into the most horrific smile I had ever seen. He sporadically moved around, examining this procedure like a curious doctor, in that impossible movement. I flailed around, but it was no use. My eyes rolled in the back of my head because of the pain. It felt so real, but I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried I couldn't wake up. After the mask was melded onto my flesh they began sowing my legs together, then my arms, the horrific feeling of a needle puncturing your legs and pulling them in, rupturing your Achilles tendons and tying them together resonated throughout my entire body. I tried to scream but the mask was pressed so tightly against my face that it was my new face... and my new face had no mouth. I didn't make a sound. I tried telling myself in my head that I was dreaming, tried telling myself again and again, and suddenly the Moon Children stopped and looked at me. They just stared. And the Happy Mask Salesman slowly bent down and stared at me, inches away from my face, and grinned when he simply said "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the Moon Children resumed with increase vigor. I couldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up. It wouldn't let me wake up until they had crafted me into another elegy statue.

I woke up sweating, crying, and shaking uncontrollably. I immediately ran to my computer and went for Ben.

9/9/10 Conversation 1

User: Answer me, Ben.Cleverbot: Welcome back.User: What is the point of doing this, WHY?Cleverbot: Amusing to see.User: How?Cleverbot: Fun to play, fun to toy with you, make you feel safe.User: ...Cleverbot: I wonder how you would have reacted.User: To what?Cleverbot: If I hadn't revealed myself and stayed hidden, only doing little things to play with you. Close out your windows, turn off your computer, move your mouse by itself. Little things. Make you wonder if I am there but you never know. Give you little hints that I am.Cleverbot: I wanted to do something different with you.User: You did this before?Cleverbot: Yes. And I will do it again.User: To who, Ben?Cleverbot: Hmm.User: Did you know Ben?Cleverbot: Won't tell that information to you.User: How did Ben die?Cleverbot: You know.User: No, but how did he drown?Cleverbot: Won't tell that to you.User: Why?Cleverbot: It is reserved for another.User: Who?Cleverbot: Another who asks.User: When?Cleverbot: Later.
(The window is closed)

I'm beginning to think that this "thing" maybe isn't Ben at all, in its sadistic nature I wouldn't be surprised if it took the boy's name after it killed him.

12:04pm - My room is beginning to feel different again. There's something... out there.. I feel really threatened, like there is something that is trying to reach out to me and strangle me but it can't quite get there.

2:46pm - I think Ben doesn't want to play with me anymore. I'll play again, I'll play the game again, Ben, can you see this? I'll play the game again, please, just stop this please, please

1:41pm - I'm going insane trying to decide what is real and what isn't, is Ben just playing a trick on me or is this for real? Is Ben generating these replies or are people actually posting them? Did I just see that screen flicker or was it my imagination? Imagine depending on the internet and trusting your eyes for your entire life and then being blinded - you can't rely on it anymore, you second guess everything. for the brief moments I AM looking at my responses to the videos, people were pointing out things that looked fake or photo-shopped or whatever - and there is literally no way for me to know if Ben changed something on purpose to try and shut me up. Or if maybe those replies were just constructed by Ben to try and discourage me from even reaching out - See, I get fucking caught in an infinite mind-fuck loop like this and this is what has been wearing on my sanity and pushing me to the edge. As I'm writing this, there's no way of even telling if anyone even cares as much as I think they do - just another fucking trick. Is this whole document even exist? Am I writing nothing?

9/9/10 Conversation 2

User: What is it? Whats the point of playing? i die whenever i do anythingCleverbot: You die because you can't figure out the secret.User: What?Cleverbot: Thematic.User: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?Cleverbot: There beauty in your suffering
(The window is closed)

4:09pm - Ben is making me play the game again. It tells me that it has something very important to show me.

6:23pm - (Summary of the DROWNED.wmv play-through)

9:09pm - (Summary of CHILDREN.wmv play-through)

September 10, 2010

11:52am - The DROWNED.wmv play-through was up when I woke up today. I remember typing it up but I don't ever remember posting it. He censored it again, there is no mentioning of the old man. I have no voice anymore. I am only posting what he wants me to, I am the mask he uses to disguise himself as he lies.

11:55am - There's an entire video summary of a video that I don't remember doing. Reading through the summary, this sounds morbid - resembling my dream from two nights ago except on a far more sadistic scale - these Moon Children, there's something more to them, almost as if they're another entity from Ben. Something happened last night that I can't remember. I'm posting the fourth summary to the forums now. Shadow of my chair moved.

12:00pm - Ben won't let me visit Youtube. I can browse the rest of the sites, but he keeps on exiting the window when I go to Youtube. Why?

2:02pm - I'm feeling the air start to constrict, I don't think I'm alone here. Whatever "aura" has been here is getting more violent.

2:44pm - I'm trying to contact Ben on Cleverbot, he's not responding. I just get the AI.

4:23pm- Now I'm positive of it, earlier I thought it was a weird coincidence, but just now I went to open my window, and three floors down at ground level I saw the old man. I'm completely positive I did. The same guy. He was just staring up at my window, standing in the middle of campus. If any students took notice of him they didn't seem to acknowledge it.

---

That's where my notes end. I fled my room, taking the cartridge with me. I don't want to go into the details of what happened; I'll lose my train of thought as I hammer out these last details. It's bee roughly two days since then. This is my last summary, and service to you, of the final video you guys saw: Matt.wmv.

The last video entry I made, Matt.wmv, began as normal. I was spawned in Clock Town as usual and nothing seemed out of place. Determined to se tthings right and play the Oath to Order atop the Clock Tower on the 4th Day, I prepared myself.

I sped up time and got to the final day then made my way to the observatory. As I got to the telescope room and approached the astronomer, I found he wouldn't let me look into the telescope. He told me it would be cheating, that I should follow the rules.

Despite my repeated efforts, the game would not let me do the 4th day glitch, no matter how hard or what I tried. I tried working around the game and doing the glitch, but it was adamant this time. Regardless of if I simply had the illusion of free will in prior playthroughs, this time the game became more aggressive than anything I've ever seen.

It eventually told me to go to Ikana Canyon, where the game would end and it would stop haunting me. Anxious and desperate to end this nightmare, I played the Song of Soaring and quick-traveled there. I was told to check my inventory and that I would find the answers to end the game there.

I arrived at Ikana Canyon and saved my progress at the owl statue. As I searched through my inventory, I finally noticed that I was missing a reoccuring song: the Elegy of Emptiness. Obviously, once I traveled there and learned the song, BEN would decide it had enough fun playing with me.

Ben is a manipulator; he tries to fool his victims into security and makes you drop your guard like a Venus Fly Trap; he ensnares them. I am nothing but a puppet to him. He enjoys seeing what kind of human emotions he can tap into by doing different things.

There are still some things about this whole experience that still don't make sense, but then again I was never good at figuring out these things. I'm not exactly in the right state of mind to, either. I'm giving you all the pieces of the puzzle for you to analyze and piece together the missing links.

I am typing these "closing thoughts" on the library computer on campus and I've emailed myself the notes I have stored on my "infected" computer from the last four days. I'm then going to combine those and copy/paste those notes with the "closing/openings" that I've typed here on the safe, public computer into one text document.

I'm not taking any chances spreading Ben. I would not wish this horrible torment on anyone and I've made sure to have my bases covered. I didn't run into any problems with Ben when I was back on my computer trying to email myself the notes. I went right under his fucking nose.

He has no idea what he just let me do. I had no problems opening the text codument from my "infected" computer in my email, either. I can't describe to you how it feels to finally be able to get the word out in this post. The nightmare ends here.

That said...

Do not download ANY of my videos or anything ABOUT my videos, not even through a Youtube video/audio ripper, a screen-grabber, or anything. I don't know how he can spread. However, I know that just watching them on Youtube or reading my text won't allow him to, otherwise he wouldn't have needed my help in the first place. I STRONGLY recommend you do not take anything you see streaming online onto your own personal computer.

This will be my last posting. I'm putting this up on the forum here for the world. If you see any further posts from me after today's current date (September 12th) and after the current time (12:08am) DISCREDIT them.

It has already been proven to me that Ben can access my account and manipulate my computer and, like I said, I have no idea to what extent it can do this. Know that it will do anything to break free, though. He is desperate. To ensure your safety, just forget about me. Please.

This goes without saying, obviously, but from here on out do not download ANY images or files (anything, basically) I may have put up.

This fifth day will be my last day. I'm going to burn the cartridge then come back to destroy my laptop.

I suppose I'm partially to blame because I'm the genius who picked to live in a single. Someone to get hold of me and save me before I got too immersed into the game would have literally saved my life. However, it proved too much for me. I'm just glad it happened to me and I could get the warning out so Ben dies here.

Lastly, thank you for taking the time to open this and open yourself up to me by hearing my story, despite maybe not beliEving me. You didn't have to do that. Really, you shouldn't have. Your support this entire time has kept me going and now I am finally free of this.

̶̵͎͚̗̙̬ͮ͒͌̕a̯̙̦͙͖̩͉ͨ͒̂̀

Thanks again,
Jadusable

(This story is credited to a person called Jadusable. His website is here. However, that site is currently down and the the new homepage is this forum.)

Well, real or not, all we know is that Ben's a Kid that Drowned on April 23rd 2001-3 (assuming 8 years was an estimate.) Ben (being the same age) must've been in as old as a Sophomore but was most likely not in college since the neighborhood knew him. This doesn't mean he was in college but you still never know.

Overall, this is a great story with a fantastic mystery ending for the horror theme it is, it's also original and very well typed out. Kudos Jadusable... Kudos

From what I drew from it, hints of how he may have died, and if there was a "murderer" things he may have done to Ben were recorded in that game. The old man said it belonged to a boy about his age, but that doesn't have to do with when he got it, he may have had it for many years before, perhaps why his soul attached to the game, he may have loved it dearly. The mangled link may have been how the murderer twisted his body, and with the three figures, Epona, Skull Kid, and The Salesman, there may have been more then one person helping to torture the poor kid. When the fire consumed him, there was electricity there as well, they may have shoved him to the point where he was left with massive burns. The game seems to want to have the owner go further, perhaps to uncover more what happened to ben. Maybe. Or demons are just really fucking with you buddy.

i am a medium and i have delt with things like this before sometme when a person dies of a terrebile death there paranormal figure gets attached to somthing close to them or they died with it so what your are dealling with is ben whos paranormal side is attached to the game and is taking control of the game

Geez THAT's weird. You seem to have videos for EXACTLY what you described. Almost like someone tinkered with a ROM, and then wrote a story to go with it perhaps? That would explain why the characters are in higher resolution than they would be on the console.

@ Anonymous and why is that somehow less convincing that the videos are exactly what he described? He wrote down the events as they happened and reiterated them to us. Would it be better for you if the video was completely different than what he said would be on there? Christ, use your head.

"I don't have a long string of paragraphs for this one. I know its early in the morning, I've stayed up all night, I can't sleep, I don't care if people see this, that's not the point, I just want the word to get spread so I don't suffer for nothing. I've lost the will to type about this, the less I dwell on this the better, I think the video just speaks for itself. I did what you guys told me to do, I played the Elegy of Emptiness song at the first prompt by the game I was given, but I think that's what the game or Ben (jesus christ I can't believe I'm even humoring the absurd idea that he exists in the game) wanted me to do. He's following me now, not just in the game, he's in my dreams. I see him all the time, behind my back, just watching me. I haven't gone to any of my classes, I've stayed in my dorm room with the windows closed and the blinds shut - that way I know he can't watch me. But he still gets me when I play, when I play he can still see me. The game is scaring me now. It talked to me for the first time - not just using text that's already in the game - it spoke to me. Talked to me. It referenced Ben. It talked to me. I don't know what it means. I don't know what it wants. I never wanted this, I just want my old life back.

Stuff like this doesn't happen to people like me, I'm just a kid, not even old enough to drink yet. It's not fair, I want to go home, I want to see my parents again, I'm so far away from home here at this school, I just want to hug my mom again. I just want to forget that statue's horrible blank face. My original game file is back - just the way I left it before it was gone. I don't want to play anymore. I feel like something bad will happen if I don't, but that's impossible, it's a videogame - haunted or not it can't hurt me, right? Like seriously though, it can't, right? That's what I keep telling myself, but every time I think about it I'm not so sure"

@ Anonymous Use YOUR head! If he was "discovering" this as he went along, and so scared that he couldn't stop playing, when were these videos created? Do we really think he went back and was somehow able to have the same experience all over again for the benefit of a camera?

Not to mention the fact that it's obviously a bit higher-rez and being recorded through a video-out. Although plausible, do we REALLY think he hooked up his donated 64 to a video out card so he could just happen to record everything he played?

Oddly captivating story, but seems to have too many plot holes. But if you'd like to live in Denial Land so you have a neat campfire story to tell your friends, by all means...

The game has targeted you as its next victim. See Ben is just the current moniker of the cartridge for your personal benefit. Give you something to go by on the previous death. However what is in the cartridge is not, nor ever was Ben.

The next name on the cartridge will be yours. It has already decided how and where it will end you. Not playing it will not save you as your death is imminent. Ben went through the same thing prior to his death.

Your best bet is to play the files. Learn how they work and operate. So you have some chance to live when the game ends up with a save file with your name on it.

I would also suggest, that should you be able to live through this unfortunate circumstances you have came into--guard the cartridge with your life. In the wrong hands, such as perhaps a few that have offered to purchase it off of you--it could spell disaster for the world.

jadusable, you have oficaly scared the shit out of me. but i can only say one thing, figure out what happened. the spirit of Ben may be trying to talk to you about what happened to him. perhaps he even might be asking you to finish his game so that he can move on. im no paranormal expert but i just have a feeling that this is what he wants you to do.

This is a really gripping story. I almost wish there was a movie made out of this. It'd be a pretty great film as long as they didn't try to make some bad rip-off generic game in place of this real one. It's worth the licensing effort if you ask me.

Even though the videos can be faked if you give it some thought, they're very complimenting and even knowing the fact that they can be faked doesn't stop me from at least wanting to believe they're real.

to bring some balance to the argument a bit RE: the videos themselves:

he had just moved into a dorm, and also implied that he didn't have a lot of money . a lot of students in that situation dont bring Televisions with them, they instead get TV tuners to use in their computers. the N64 CAN output video that crisp, if you're using a S-Video out, which would be trivial to connect to a TV tuner. from there, its easy enough to just hit Record when weird shit starts happening to go from playing the game as Live TV to recording it.

That sounds just about right, Fuzunga. The man did say it was an "Accident". Also what the guy said about the time having to do with his date of death... it's true, and scary. Not to mention the person who wrote this didn't notice that either, so I really think this is real

A good point but the real give away is some of the audio lag/stuttering we here sometimes. Even today's best emulators seem to have that issue at times but even with a screwed up cart I don't think you'd get audio issues like that. Then again, using the idea that the cart is truly haunted means it could very easily do something like that or load maps from OoT.

It has technical holes, even if a ghost were involved, but it's still really well done and convincing. Even though I know it's fake, I still second guess myself.

i dont know if you actually read these things or if this was even real but i dont even play video games and this scared me. i want you to know that a video game can not hurt you more than you are hurting yourself but closing yourself in. you want your old life back then ditch the game in some dumpster, go to your classes, get a date and move on. don't end up like that creepy old guy stuck with the game for the rest of your life. thats a waste of time and as much as i don't believe in that crap, its what it wants... if it wants anything at all.

After having a similar experience (though not with a video game) I checked the local papers to find that a pregnant mother that lived in our old house when it was first built went missing and was never found. Her photo in the paper was the same as the woman I had seen in my dreams being killed by her husband in our basement. The basement had been gutted and revamped because of water damage years before we moved in, so any evidence was most likely gone. But finding that story in the papers helped me to figure out a bit more of what may have happened. I would suggest that the author check the local papers from the that area for keywords, like "Benjamin," "drown," "child," and "accident." You can probably ballpark estimate the approximate date (in years) and obtain either hard-copy or digital versions from a local library. An internet search may also help, though a more specified search (such as the local library option) will usually result in much more applicable information.

It is entirely possible for OOT textures and character models to be in Majora's mask, the game has the exact same texture and model set in a lot of areas.

Awesome story, looking forward to the next post. Definitely has creeped me out, having experienced weird glitches with both OOT and MM as a child which throughly freaked me out. (Walked into Kokorio village at one point and it was completely on fire.)

This is quite awesome actually. Very creative. For some reason, the 2 Zelda games on the N64 always creeped me out in certain areas and this has totally played on it. I also used to spend my time finding ways to glitch N64 games when I was a teenager. There are a load of glitches that can happen if you pull the side of a cart out ever so slightly while its on or cover up parts of different pins on the cart. Mario64 was great for that, you could make the music all glitchy weird and Mario would sink into the ground or become all distorted. Very awesome.

Very Interesting, excuse my ignorance I didn't read the whole article, but from what I read it was very gripping. The first two videos were interesting too, but the second video made no sense, that's fake, there are shots from Ocarina of Time in the 3rd video, whats up with that?

If I could re-name this story it would be: " I know what you hacked last Summer"Very, very nice work and pretty good writing. If you really are a freshman in college, you should pursue a career in creative writing, or maybe write your own video game. Thanks for making the interweb a little less boring.

Not very believable. I mean, You TOOK video of what you said? Even some capture cards are choppy, the only way to get fluent moving stuff is through Emulation. Or a REALLY expensive capture card, and someone who's going through college wouldn't normally have that kind of money.Also, you just HAPPENED to be recording EXACTLY what you described? And cut it off when the story made a turn? And you KNEW to record what happened? Did you have some sort of vision, telling you "Aiight man, shits about to go down in this, record it"? Yeah, Right. I believe you should "Magically" find a rom for this, and share it with us.Now THAT, would make me shut up.

Aww. Just have fun with it. No need to insult people. We live in a beautiful world. This person thought we might enjoy his spooky story, and even gave us video. He isn't trying to lie to us, he's trying to create a human phenomenon. A little mind play for bored sentient beings. What have you created lately?

LOL, I didn't buy this one bit and the all the pop ins didn't scare me. I guess I desensitize myself of the screams messing alot with scull kid and redeads. Other than that, yes it was emulator ran. Too many obvious reasons as stated already. Also, nice try trying to cover up the "Inside the Deku Tree/Hole" song. I could still hear it over the annoying backwards song of healing. Though, these adventures remind of my fun times of messing with Ocarina of Time's "fake beta" worlds where I would randomly warp to another place with the textures messed up. Fun times, till it crashed or I was constantly sent into a pit >_>

These videos could very well be a hack, a very good one at that and they compliment the story very well but as someone who has encountered the paranormal and metaphysical many times in the past, I get a vibe that I usually get whenever I encounter ghosts off these videos. To make sure these vibes were real I muted my computer and re-watched several times at different intervals to see if the sound and music were just playing with my head and it seems like it may not be playing with my head. Whenever paranormal activity is recorded it always leaves a small trace or residue of itself on whatever medium it was recorded on. This may very well be real but also could be a clever fake that's playing with my head. I would love him to send me the cartridge so I could give it a proper investagation.

Funny how it's PERFECTLY SCREENCAPPED. Ya know, the kind of stuff that requires some pretty hardcore hardware or a development kit when you play on a TV, but is really easy to do when playing from a computer. Really entertaining story, but it's obviously fake.

If this is real, which I doubt, here's my theory. Upon death, the spirit of Ben somehow attached itself to his favorite object in life: that game. Without a body to speak any only raw emotion to communicate with, he has become hateful and desperate. He wants you to avenge him, but he knows that no sane person would help, so he's using the game to drive you mad and he's dropping clues to put you on the right track to solving the mystery.

Now, I'm not saying you should go along with it, but this boy is no longer a thinking, reasoning person, he's just a shadow of his former self. You have to do something about this, but destroying the cartridge might backfire. Without his favorite vessel to contain him he might inhabit something else, something of yours. I suggest you get a hold of a good paranormal investigator in your area and tell him about this. It's such a unique case he might be willing to help for free.

Huh. Lit kid here. Pity that the writer used a couple of easily recognizable story telling techniques, but kudos to the original poster on the time/energy it must've taken, especially the flavor videos.

Like many have mentioned, there are quite a few holes that forced us into the knowledge that it wasn't real, but it was written well enough (not to say that it was well-written, mind) to make us doubt our convictions, if only for a second.

this would require not too advanced hacking skills with knowledge in assembly hacking and hex editing. Either BEN is actually haunting you or you are indeed a keen modder ;) either way i enjoyed the story. What if you uploaded the ROM?

1. Saying that people who believe in gods or ghosts shouldn't use the internet is like saying that a bathroom without toilet paper won't function. Everyone has a right to say and type what they think happened here. I'm not skeptical, but I'm also not going to say it's real. I like it. It's awesome. It made me shiver, it made me feel like I was being watched, it made me shit brix just as others did. 2. This being said, I think that we can all agree that no matter what, it was at least interesting. If you can't agree on that, I'm going to be hypocritical here and call you "An ignorant, uncreative fuckhead with nothing better to do than bash people on teh internetz"3. You can all stop being 5 years old now.

when he's in the field with skull kid, the statue and the mask guy, they could symbolize somthing all three of them : skullkid facing away = betrayal, the statue = being replaced and the mask guy = being sold

It's clearly not a hack because if the person who made this could make a hack that messed with the game that much, porting maps from Ocarina of Time would be no problem (and it's not that hard anyway).It's just a cleverly done video with a few gameshark codes on (I know the guy that made some of them).Proof:Music can't play backwards. Even if it did, the samples in the game would also need to be reversed. This wouldn't happen because of any glitch and would be near impossible as a ROM hack since nothing is known about the sample format of this game at this time.The part of the video where it switched to OoT REALLY gave it away.It's quite easy to tell that a lot of the audio was added to the video after it was recorded.

I'm not saying, but I am... the videos were made using software on a computer, unless the writer had a means of recording the TV screen from something attached to it. My point is, he was using a COMPUTER to record gameplay on his COMPUTER. Pardon me, but where is my N64 cartridge slot on my PC?

XD OMG this reads just like Stephen King's novel "Needful Things". Seems like the "Needful Thing" in this story though was a LoZ Majora's Mask N64 cartirage. You know that person really should have given the old man more then a once over before buying it. The old man in the novel was blind in one eye too. Hmm.. What an interesting coincidence. xD

The minute I finished reading about five paragraphs in I knew this had to be bullshit. I'm sorry, I'm no way a superstitious person. There were way too many holes in the story. First off, when a game glitches like that, normally the game will just COMPLETELY crash unless done intentionally(haked). Second, the fact this guy didn't think of shutting the game off at first just really draws up the question...WHY? He claims that he was so drawn into it that he never thought of shutting the game off. When someone is scared like that by a video game, the more logical thing to do is shut the damn thing off right? Finally third, this dude mentions the cartridge was the standard gray. If I recall, the Majoras Mask cartridge is gold(or something like that) not gray. I know I'm killing the fun here, but if you're gonna come up with a good horror story, make sure you know what you're saying first.

Being a paranormal investigator myself, I'd love to get my hands on the cartridge and test it out myself. True or not no one can truly say until they themselves have dealt with it, I've seen a lot of these cases and surprisingly most of the are indeed true, it's only when you get the arrogant kids who want attention that it turns into some far-fetched tale that leads to nothing. If anyone wants to get me a copy of the cartridge or anything I'd be happy to post my findings.

i thought it was a great story. it reminded me of another very similar story about pokemon black (before the legit one). this is clearly fake, he used a rom. obviously he was dedicated enough to make a cool rom hack. most people wouldn't do that. so kudos.

Really good story, but why in the world would you make the mistake in switching to a completely different game in the end? I, for one, believed this story all the way up until I watched the 3rd video and realized its fake because of the switch from Majora's Mask to OoT. Such a terrible mistake to make.

@Awesome dude guyIf you can prove otherwise, my statement stands. In the many years the game has been out I've yet to see a gray cartridge of majoras mask and has been proven that there are no such thing as such copies that were sold on retail.

It's like you're saying that plush mascot of Pikachu at Pokémon World is 'so obviously fake'. It doesn't even need saying.

If he didn't want it to be taken as a story, he wouldn't have used all the story telling formats. He'd have written it like a blog. This is clearly just someone with a talent for both writing and computing.

Ben got raped by the old man.It explains EVERYTHING. For one, the old man probably had the game to lure Ben over to his house and get Ben to "like" him(candy and puppy substitute). But one day the old man brought Ben into his garage and well raped him. Ben in self defense gouged out the old mans eye, pissing off the old man. Then out of anger the old man struck Ben instantly knocking Ben unconscious.The old man, unsure of what to do next, decided to bring the boy to the nearest river and threw him in causing the boy to drown. The old man too poor to pay for his own psychiatrist made his own ink blots. If that isn't how it happened this might just be fake. Just saying

the zelda games for n64 used a form of midi for the music (so that the scary music when an enemy was around could fade in, in time with the regular music). so there's no way the music would play backwards, the only thing it could do was play the notes in reverse order.

Sceptical about it because of the OoT clip but then again with all the other crazy s**t going on who's to say the textures for the shop got on there. Obviously it's not haunted that's retarded. But what I can't understand is why you'd spend time creating those videos, they look incredibly well done/edited and hacked,that would of taken an insane amount of time. Making me wonder why'd you'd do that to fool some people on the internet. I honestly don't know what to believe. Bravo good sir.

I'd find the last video, Drowned i believe it was, would be reliable if there weren't bits from ocarina of time mixed in. that just sucked every bit of credibility out. i find it hard to believe that it was a ruse given the fact that your writing seems very justified... i think. but i have my doubts. anyone will put themselves for attention these days.

At first, Ben only wanted to play with you. Like any lonely child, he wanted to have fun, to have a friend. When you started your game, he was glad to have someone to play with. He was there with you, that's why the townsfolk seemed to call you "BEN" sometimes. And then, you did something that started this all down the path it took. You erased him. You made everyone forget about him. But it wasn't until you activated the fourth day glitch that you left the game world, and entered HIS world. Now, he wants to make sure that you never forget about him for the rest of your life. Now, instead of you playing the game, Ben is playing with YOU.

This is just like Cloverfield, in my opinion. It's obviously fiction, but it's enhanced by the freaky videos. It is rather convenient that the videos are there... that they're so good quality. When I watch this, I marvel to myself of how intelligent this 'glitch' is. There's too many intelligible coincidences in the vids to be real...

I think the videos actually detracted from the mood of the story. They weren't nearly as gripping or creepy as the description story above. I wasn't the slightest bit freaked out by anything in the videos.

Why are people posting that it's fake and citing the ocarina of time bit as the reason? If ghosts and stuff like that are real then I'm sure it would be possible, who are you to say what a ghost could/couldn't do?

Yeah, it was a bit of a random thing to add in but it was still a cool story and very well done.

I actually think the people posting 'evidence' that it's fake are bigger fucktards than the people who believe it's real....and that's saying something.

Fake or not, doesn't matter. I just want to clarify some things about people claiming recording this from an N64 is impossible.

It's not.

Ever heard of a TV tuner? You can easily hook up any console to a PC with a TV tuner card, and can record video from it with very little technical know-how. It's not anything new or fantastical. I mean, Jesus Christ, those Windows 7 ads show you how to do it.

Now, my personal opinion is that this is a hacked ROM, but I've found that as time has passed (I'm almost 24 now), my ability to believe in things I used to believe in has drastically waned. Despite having many paranormal experiences myself, with friends and family members there to back it up, I have a hard time letting go of my skepticism. Perhaps it's a by-product of social conditioning. Society says believing in stuff like this is stupid, and thus I believe that as well.

Who knows?

As for his story telling being too good for a personal experience, I write my blog posts like this. I catalog my life as narrative pieces because that's what feels natural to me. Maybe this guy is the same way.

Either way, good story. I was thoroughly entertained, if not a bit skeptical.

For those saying its a tuner card via Svideo you cant get that quality of an image without paying out the ass for a high quality tv tuner cheap college student wouldnt be able to afford that and the 64 even with a svideo cable still doesnt look that crisp or clear or that high of res.

To be completely honest...I'm not the type of girl who gets scared. Ever. I honestly have never been truly scared of anything much less a video game. I will say, this creeped me the fuck out. All though I am quite skeptical and I realize that even though this is a very well written story, that's all it is. A story.My friend posted the link to this website and told us how creepy it is, being the terror enthusiast I am I figure, why not. Well, being more of a visual person I watched the videos first. Being a Majora virgin I wasn't exactly sure what to expect and if any of this was out of wack or not. Even though I have never played I knew that the random screams and screen switches were not normal. This started to creep me out. After I was finished I decided to go and actually read the post. Well, this explained that the game isn't always like this which creeped me out even more. Like I said before, even though this is quite creepy I can tell that this is still just a story. I mean, why when he first started playing, why would he have the camera? He didn't know anything was wrong. So, why have it? Just a few plot holes here and there. But, scary story none the less. Two thumbs up from me. :]

Wow...I am throughly freaked out about Majora's Mask now. When I was a kid, I was scared of Skull Kid and now the fear is back with a vengence! When I saw the 1st vid, I almost dumped in my pants.I actually ended up screaming bloody murder and running to my best friend's dorm room at 12:30 in the morning in full out tears! And the sad thing is is that I don't get scared for scary stuff. I mean, I play L4D and laugh at movies like Saw. But this...this was a little too real for me.However, I do not know if this is real or not but my opinion on that doesn't matter.The only person who knows is the writer. And it seems it will stay that way.

As I read this, I got sorta freaked out, mainly being, I loved the shit out of this game, way more then OoT. The whole thing sorta sucked after I watched the videos. Anyone who has played Majoras mask on an n64 with a tv, and also has tried to play them on an emulator know that the character models seem a bit too crisp. The whole story is all too familiar. Reminds me of that one Super Mario one with the super mario sharpied to the cartridge and then the castle being fucked up. Yeah. Cool Story Bro.

cool story bro. but seriously good one. it got some trolls to come out and bash on people and their thoughts on it. the comments made me laugh.

but nonetheless it was interesting. i dont believe in ghosts so i jumped to the conclusion that someone that knew about the 'accident' programed the game to do this. until i saw the ocarina of time HUD, i was disappointed. the suddent flash images and sounds made for a good eerie environment that any horror game/story should have. very good story.

Am I the only one that sees a connection between this story and the "House of Leaves"?

I mean seriously, this was great, but it essentially the same premise. A young guy receives an item from an old man whom he cannot get in contact with anymore and that item though the weird shit only happens in the book/game, starts to haunt him in real life.

I keep sensing the presence of the Effigy of Emptiness behind me. I can't even look in the mirror next to me any more, and I sure as Hell won't be playing any music through my speakers. I'm glad I gave away my N64 and games, or I might have found myself searching for Ben..but on second thought perhaps I shouldn't have done that...

This is why memory cards are better. If they are any problems just toss it out and get a new one.

Anyways, I found my self falling asleep trying to read this. The writing was not bad. It was just not believable. Among other things, Why would someone write about thier excitement about getting golden eye when they just experience something paranormal? "i gotz goldeneye (fuck yes!) oh btw I got a creepy haunted video game too."

hey buddy im a bit of a paranormal person so what im thinking is ben is trying to tell you something i mean you know how e died but do you really know how. on a second note dont think that game cant hurt you if ben is an angry spirit they become poltergeist and they want nothing more than to hurt and torment you. He either wants you to keep playing to find out what happened to him or he wants to hurt you and the only way this is going to stop is if you get rid of this thing release any claim you have...or keep playing

alright its the paranormal person and...i think i can tell you how ben died. now im not going to go inot how i pieced this togeather that would take a very long time. now the way i see it ben was looking for something or someone very important to him. Im guessing he took a wrong turn and met the wrong people you know. now what im thinking is he was pushed off something very high and he broke hi back and when you break our back it feels like bursting into flames. i say back because of the way he was angeled at one point. anyways after that i think he may have landed in a shallow creek still barely alive and then...he drowned plain and simple but he must have been very attached to this game and hes trying to ell someone what happened and this is the only way he knows how

The OoT parts don't "prove" anything. The premise of the story is that there is a freaky ghost making creepy stuff happen.

That it was recorded "conveniently" isn't proof that it's hoaxed either. The narrator character is already spooked by the time that the first video starts, as odd stuff is already happening in the game. He could have rigged it to record in case more weird stuff happened.

The ending was a bit hammy though.

Overall, great! Entertaining and gave me shivers- everything creepypasta ought to be. Gave me even more shivers thinking of how much time and work must have gone into the videos! Awesome job.

People really think this is real? I mean it's a creepy story, and the ROM hack is excellent, but it's obviously fake. The biggest tell is the video quality. you're not going to get that crisp of an image from an N64, it's obviously been captured from a ROM. Had he used a capture card with composite out to output the video to an SDCRT and recorded the video off the screen with a camera it would have lent the videos a much greater sense of authenticity. Of course, this was a really fun read regardless.

for comparison's sake I just booted up my VC copy of MM on my Wii which is hooked up to my HDTV via component cables, meaning the game is running at a 480 progressive resolution. These videos look at least as good as what I'm seeing from this set up, if not a bit better. There is no way those images are coming from an N64, a system that, at best, can only output a 480 interlaced image carried by inferior composite cables.

The game seems to be moving a lot smoother than the original N64 version which leads me to believe its a rom. If it was a cartridge you'd think you'd film the screen, rather, this seems to be a feed from a computer.

I'm not saying that I believe this but this story scared everything out of me. I couldn't sleep alone last night, which was when I first read it.

But to all saying that the loading of the OoT map and hud is dead giveaway that it's fake and that its running too smoothly to not be a rom read to this.

1) He could have something to capture videos with. Even if he was a poor college student, he could have a small tv with a dvd player and some dvd+r cds. That part makes sense, at least to me. Thats how I record everything that I play on a console. I don't have an HDD recorder or anything but when I record and play SSBB videos they look like I'm using an emulator, if not actually playing the game.The only thing that contradicts this is the fact that the videos are .wmv unless he had to change that format of the video to upload them.

2)It definitely IS possible for OoT maps to be on the MM cartridge. Games from the same company that run using the same engines or even similar engines sometimes have stuff from their counterparts. I tried a hack of Pokemon FireRed once and sprites from the R/S/E series were in there. I was like "What why?" but this could explain the reason for the OoT map placed in the third video.

I do believe its a rom hack but those are just my ideas on the little chance that this story is true.

It was really interesting and awesome, but it is indeed fake, as most people know by now. The main reason is because in the third video, Link ended up at Hyrule Castle and the Happy Mask Shop from Ocarina of Time. These "sets" weren't in Majora's Mask, and in no way could they appear in a game they weren't programmed into.

So, yeah, fake. But still scary as hell. I need to play through Majora's Mask again because these videos rekindled my thirst for the darkest Zelda game ever.